


Granted

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s04e19 Canary Cry, F/M, but not for fans of the ship, mentioned Olicity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 08:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: “It was about faith, really. Trust. No one ever wanted to know who their soulmate was, if they’d been right. Not until the last possible moment.”A person loses their ability to see color after their soulmate tells them they love them for the last time.





	Granted

**Author's Note:**

> So another Soulmate AU. No real explanation except that this idea came to me while I was writing the previous Soulmate AU and it proved very easy for me to write and have ready to post. Hopefully this reaches anybody who was in the mood for angst. If I were to fix-it, I have a _vague_ idea of how that would happen, but I'd probably only write it if people wanted that. So I guess let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!

She lost color two years ago.

It came on her gradually, in the midst of her spiral. By the time Oliver was walking away from her down a hallway, the words,  _ “I have loved you for half of my life,” _ echoing around in her head, it was complete. And what was there to do but swallow down the fear and loneliness and rage — how  _ dare _ he do this to her? how dare he bleed the color from her life so young? — and walk away herself. What else was there to be done?

It was about faith, really. Trust. No one ever wanted to know who their soulmate was, if they’d been right. Not until the last possible moment. Her mother’s favorite film,  _ Technicolor,  _ told the fairytale: a couple fell in love in their youth, built a life together, struggled through, and then on their deathbed in old age each confessed their love for the last time before falling peacefully into eternal sleep. The film faded from color to gray, before finally to black as the orchestra swelled and  _ The End _ was projected onto the screen in curvy letters. That’s what everyone wanted.

Who would want to know the truth only to know their soulmate would never say the words to them ever again? Better the uncertainty.

But somehow, the world did not end despite hers being in shades of black, white, and gray. Maybe out of spite Laurel pulled herself out of addiction, got help, threw herself into her relationships with family and friends. And yes, that included him. Even if she was to never know that kind of love again, she could find some kind of equilibrium.

In times of strife, it was still Oliver who was there, as himself or the Arrow. Sometimes he would even say things that made her hold her breath —  _ “It’s because I care about you.”  _ — but there was no point to hoping. No point to wondering if those flashes of color were real or just desperately imagined. The last time was always meant to be the last time.

She stopped trying to remember what green or red or blue looked like, which of the grays they were. When Ted asked her which color she wanted to wear at the gym, her answer was a firm, “Black. Definitely black.” It was the one color she could rely on anymore.

She never told Oliver. Tempted as she was sometimes. Would it shock him? Would he even care? Sometimes she wondered if he’d already experienced it the same as she had, just one of a thousand hurts he kept shut up inside of himself.

Just once, she thought maybe she glimpsed the moment it happened. Thea had come to her with the truth of Sara’s death and Oliver’s knowledge of it. She approached him, tried to see if he’d admit to it himself, and his lie blinded her with an anger that nearly made her think she could see red.

“You know it’s hard to remember a time when I was actually in love with you.”

The words left her before she could stop them, and his face — but she turned away, just as he had only a year ago. She calmed eventually, as she always did, and there was no mention or indication from Oliver. Nothing that made her think he’d realized the despairing truth.

Did she really have it in her to say the words again? Even if she knew in the deepest reaches of her heart that they were still true, she couldn’t think of a way they might ever come out.

Not when he appeared to betray them to the League —  _ “Oliver, we believed in you!”  _ — not when he left with Felicity —  _ a smile at his goodbye speech, little spoken between them at all _ — not when she and Thea set off to retrieve him —  _ “We’re hoping you can’t change who you are in your bones.” _ — not even when he journeyed to rescue Sara from the other realm with her —  _ “How can I say no to the man that helped me save my sister’s soul?” _

Perhaps that the meaning underneath the words was there at all was enough. Perhaps love was more than four letters. Perhaps he would never know.

But a night months later found her in the hospital, weariness in her bones and yet clarity to her mind. She told the team she loved them, and all but Oliver echoed it. He couldn’t, after all.

The others began to file out while he remained. Forever lingering near if not with her. And it would be that way forever, unless she let him go now.

It was time.

—-

If there was one solace, it was that he still had color.

Through the years on the island and the horrors he endured, through the deaths he caused and learned to stop counting, through everything that had damaged him beyond repair, he’d never lost it. That had to mean there was something to keep striving for, wasn’t there?

With each failure of a relationship, he made it past the heartbreak with his sight the same as ever. Eventually, he knew the gamble would not pay off, his luck would have to run out. He would find and then drive away his own soulmate. But it hadn’t happened yet.

Not even when Felicity gave him back the ring. Not even when she packed his things and watched him leave their home. Not even when she denied the vows she had recited at their sham of a wedding to ensnare Cupid had meant anything to her at all.

Maybe there was still hope for him, for them. Hope that he would continue to hear  _ I love you _ for years to come, that he wasn’t so much of a monster. That his soulmate could still love him, that had to mean he was doing at least one thing right.

Oliver was braced for those words, for the last time he would hear them. He thought he was prepared for it at any time.

Which was why when they did come, he felt it like a punch straight to his heart.

He didn’t know why he couldn’t say it back as he stood there by the foot of Laurel’s bed watching her and the team.  _ “We love you.”  _ They were simple words, true words, yet they bubbled up and caught in his throat so that he just nodded and felt his lips half form around the first syllable. Love was a complicated word for him and Laurel, after all.

Oliver stayed behind instead. Actions had always been his arena more than words. He would watch over Laurel all night to make sure she was safe and happy and knew how he felt, the deep bond and affection that all the years and hurts had yet to destroy.

When she asked him to fetch something out of her belt, he thought nothing of it. Until he saw what it was.

The photo rested between his thumb and forefinger as his eyes burned. When he asked, Laurel was at last free with her explanation, honest in a way that the two of them rarely were. It was enough to make his heart drop. But he couldn’t stop her; he owed her that much.

_ “I know how passionately you love, and how much it hurts once that love goes away,” _ she had said to him as she comforted him through his failed engagement. She had known. She had known all this time, and what had he done—

“And I know that I’m not the love of your life, Ollie. But you will always be the love of mine.”

It was a gradual fade. It seemed to leak in around the corners of his eyes at first, zeroing in until Laurel was the only bright spot in his vision. The blonde of her hair, the faint pink to her lips, her green gaze watching him with compassion until that too went.

Oliver choked on a sob. His legs buckled and he sat hard on the edge of her hospital bed, his hand landing on her knee. His mouth opened, her name on his lips, but she shushed him and reached, her fingers just barely brushing his. “You don’t have to say it,” she told him, words barely above a whisper. “It’s okay.”

He stayed there until he couldn’t, until the seizures began, and the doctors pushed him out towards the door.

He knew even as he stood there muttering prayers under his breath —  _ “Come on, Laurel. Come on.” _ — and holding Thea with one arm — her hair was a deep gray now, and they all looked so old — that it was no use. Laurel would have never told him until the end, until the last possible moment. She would have wanted him to have the colors.

They pronounced her dead at 11:59, but Oliver’s world had already darkened several minutes prior.

He was in a daze over the next days. Funeral preparations, an impostor in her suit, John’s guilt and rage, it all felt both too much and far too in the background to be real. Nothing felt real except the gray of her tombstone. That, he knew he could see in perfect clarity, if not the flowers that rested below it.

He couldn’t tell what kind they were without the colors to aid him. Something he had taken for granted before. He’d taken so much for granted, and just as his sight was limited now he felt it a wonder he hadn’t been blind before. He had not been lucky; he had been selfish, scared to risk his heart and his feelings on the woman who had always been in his life no matter how hard it must have been for her.

Felicity’s car was still waiting when he at last got up and left the grave. He got in on the other side, glad she remained staring out the window. It was hard to look at her.

“You know what you have to do?” She asked him. “You have to kill that son of a bitch.”

Oliver’s eyes closed. He wanted to. Oh, how badly he wanted to. But in the end, he knew it would never be what Laurel had wanted. Not for him.

“Darhk will face justice,” he promised.

Felicity sensed the denial of her request, her head turning sharply. “Oliver, I’m telling you it’s okay.”

She was giving her approval, something only until recently he would have done anything to have. Yet though many claimed they had found happiness without their soulmate, though there were self-help books and TLC shows about  _ Loving Without Color _ , he knew it wasn’t enough. Not for him. He was all-or-nothing, as Laurel had once so accurately described. God, she’d known him better than himself.

“It’s no use, Felicity,” he said. “I lost the colors.”

Her eyes widened for one long moment, and then her expression closed off. “I see.”

She faced forward in her seat, and it was a clear dismissal. Oliver opened his door and got out, watching as the car pulled away. He then turned and walked back to Laurel’s grave. It would be night before he managed to tear himself away and make the solitary trek back to the base.

He had been so determined to be alone through most of his life. Now that he knew for certain that he would be for the rest of it, his earlier resolve did little to comfort.

They should have had more time.


End file.
